On computing per-session performance bounds in high-speed multi-hop computer networks

We present a technique for computing upper bounds on the distribution of individual per-session performance measures such as delay and buffer occupancy for networks in which sessions may be routed over several “hops.” Our approach is based on first stochastically bounding the distribution of the number of packets (or cells) which can be generated by each traffic source over various lengths of time and then “pushing” these bounds (which are then shown to hold over new time interval lengths at various network queues) through the network on a per-session basis. Session performance bounds can then be computed once the stochastic bounds on the arrival process have been characterized for each session at all network nodes. A numerical example is presented and the resulting distributional bounds compared with simulation as well as with a point-valued worst-case performance bound.